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Page 13

by Arturo F. Campo


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  In the year 25,000 BC, homo sapiens had become proficient hunter-gatherers and communicated with words accompanied by hand gestures. They were territorial creatures whose boundary was but ten day’s walk away from their camp. They guarded their territory against other homo sapiens groups with only one strategy -- superiority in numbers. Against other homo sapiens, evenly numbered encounters merely resulted to visual and auditory threats. That was often sufficient to keep their distance and avoid conflict. It was only in their superior numbers that they attack and viciously.

  They guarded their women and children with utmost zeal. The community’s perpetuity depended on them. Thus, the children became the community’s prized possession and the women considered deities, the giver of life. Their fertility adored to a point of being worshiped. For this reason and strangely, there was an unwritten rule honored by all homo sapiens groups in violent encounters: only adult men fought and the women and children were never harmed and were the victor’s prize.

  However, there was a limit to the law of numbers. They live in small communities of fifty's. This puzzled Nengut until she observed a large community of eighty-five split up to two. It was a matter of logistics -- they were over populated. As hunter-gatherers, the hominid’s food supply depended on what their territory could provide. A group of fifty was what the natural environment could support within the territory they could protect. Thereby, young male and females were forced to leave and start a new community elsewhere. It was not easy. There were many territories to cross to get to the fringe of unoccupied land and start their own community there. They have yet to learn farming and animal domestication. Nevertheless, there were clear signs that they were heading in that direction. However, there was still a question of time.

 

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